Instant Searching
October 3rd, 2010While not the first to come up with the idea of instant searching, Google is certainly the most popular search engine to provide the feature. In early September, Google announced that, not only do they serve up over one billion searches a week, making them the most widely used search engine, but they would also begin displaying search results in real-time.
It may not sound like such a big deal, but Google has yet again changed the way people think about searching and how web content providers handle search engine optimization (SEO). Mashable, an online guide to social media, and one of the top 10 blogs worldwide, recently polled its readers, and over 50% of respondents said they liked Google Instant’s real-time functionality.
What is Google Instant?
Prior to Google Instant, a user would type in a search term on Google, and hit enter or click “I’m feeling lucky” which would take the user to the top search result. Now Google begins displaying results as the user is typing.
This new way of searching has eliminated the need for users to click through results. On the Google Instant website, Google claims it saves the average user 2 to 5 seconds per search, and “if everyone used Google Instant globally, [it would] save more than 3.5 billion seconds a day.“
Naughty words a no-no
Certain words on Google Instant have been blocked by default. SafeSearch, Google’s filter for screening explicit results, has been applied to Google Instant. For example, type “busty” in a Google Instant search and enjoy a blank screen. As with a standard Google search, SafeSearch can be turned off.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery
Already copycat instant searching is appearing for other web applications. YouTube Instant was launched just several days after Google Instant – http://ytinstant.com. Although Google owns YouTube, it did not create YouTube Instant; the creator is Feross Aboukhadijeh, a Stanford University computer science student.
On his blog Feross states, “It started out as a bet with my roommate. I bet him I could build real-time YouTube search in less than an hour. Sadly, I lost the bet – It took me 3 hours to finish it.” Feross shared his creation on Facebook and Twitter. The next day he had requests from the Washington Post to do an interview, several stories already written about the application on prominent blogs such as Mashable, and a tweet from YouTube CEO Chad Hurley asking him if he wanted a job.
Facebook now, too, has an instant search – http://www.fbinstant.net. Created by Nour Syron, a student from Dubai, FB Instant displays results for posts, people and updates without any delay as the user types. On his blog, Nour describes the application: “Using Javascript and AJAX makes it so easy for [FB Instant] to make calls to the Facebook servers and bring information to display it in a nice and organized way.“ Nour plans on an updated version with additional features.
Perhaps Facebook should offer Nour a job?
“Early” Adopters
A similar instant search application was purchased by Yahoo! and launched back in 2005 called AlltheWeb. Like Google Instant, it predicted text as the user typed. The same year, Yahoo! launched Yahoo! Instant Search which previewed speech bubbles of results under the search box as users typed. According to Shashi Seth, former search product leader at Google and now senior vice president of search at Yahoo!, Yahoo! owns several patents for Google Instant. There is no word from Yahoo! yet if they will take legal action.
Similarly, last year Long Zheng, technology guru and designer, introduced the concept of instant searching using the Microsoft Bing API – http://www.istartedsomething.com/livesearch. Long humorously describes the instant search as “your browser and Bing’s AJAX APIs make sweet love.“ Considering how popular Google Instant is, it is a wonder that Bing Live Search went unnoticed. Interestingly enough, Microsoft did notice – they decided to ignore it.
The future of search
Google says that, even with the introduction of Google Instant, their ranking algorithm has not changed. However, what could effect SEO are choices the user makes based on instant feedback. Google says, “seeing results as you type helps you formulate a better search term by providing instant feedback. You can now adapt your search on the fly until the results match exactly what you want.“ Google even mentions that Google AdWords advertisers could see a change in traffic results on organic keywords. Because of this, some in the SEO community have described Google Instant as “killing SEO”.
Google says they are “pushing the limits of technology and infrastructure to help [the user] get better search results, faster.” User expectation regarding online searching could shift as users become more accustom to instant results and real-time feedback. Google admits “In time, we may wonder how search ever worked in any other way.”
References
ConceivablyTech: Facebook Instant Search Published. October 2010. http://www.conceivablytech.com/3211/products/facebook-instant-search-published/
Google: About Google Instant. October 2010. http://www.google.com/instant/
Google Analytics: Google Instant and Google Analytics. October 2010. http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-and-google-analytics.html
istartedsomething. October 2010. http://www.istartedsomething.com/
Mashable: POLL – Google Instant Wins Popular Vote from Mashable Readers. October 2010. http://mashable.com/2010/09/11/google-instant-poll-results/
Noor the Syron. October 2010. http://syron.alanoor.com/
The Register: Yahoo! ‘owns several patents’ on Google Instant. October 2010.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/20/yahoo_owns_several_patents_on_google_instant/
Search Engine Watch: Google Instant, SEO, and the Future of Search. October 2010. http://searchenginewatch.com/3641347
Tom’s Guide: Google Instant Tutorial: Search, Evolved. October 2010. http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Google-Instant-YouTube,review-1581.html
Voxy: Google Instant Says No to Busty and Bollocks. http://www.voxy.co.nz/technology/google-instant-says-no-busty-and-bollocks/893/65919
Why is the design community still arguing about spec?
May 26th, 2010I haven’t really taken one side or the other in the debate about spec work, because, honestly, neither side sounds convincing over the other.
On the one side, a majority of designers argue that spec work devalues the service of design – that crowdsourcing websites encourage clients to view design as something that is easy and cheap. Absolutely.
On the other side, crowdsourcing websites and users argue that the crowdsourcing development is democratizing design – that it’s allowing small, startup companies to gain a service on a low budget and amateur or entry-level designers to gain needed experience. Absolutely.
The question a lot of designers ask, and that was asked on DCTH last week, spurred from Chris Brogan’s 99designs experiment, was “What can we do to educate about no spec?” To elaborate: how do designers, as professionals, communicate and educate to the community and clients that spec work is bad.
Harlan Ellison’s commentary on spec was mentioned during this discussion topic, and it really illustrates how designers and creative professionals feel about spec.
But here’s the thing: whether spec is good or bad is moot.
These negative feelings we all have about where the design community is going, how we’re going to pay our bills, how our work is being devalued – it doesn’t matter. The creative business landscape, and even the traditional business model, is changing and will continue to change. It’s why the freemium model is working so well.
I did a quick search for spec on YouTube after watching Mr. Ellison’s impassioned speech, and found this gem. It’s a great panel, but skip to 2:15 when Jeremiah Owyang gives his answer. The impact of his statement really hits me as I think about spec: “Spec work is here to stay. You cannot stop it.”
Instead of fighting an uphill battle, the question we need to ask is “what now?”
Since spec is here to stay, how do we, as creative professionals, leverage our skills? How do we innovate what it is that we do instead of using a 20-year-old business model that is quickly losing its efficacy? How do we look at the innovative successes of other fields and businesses and apply those models to how we do business?
Adding a no!spec badge on your website solves nothing. Preaching to the choir solves nothing. We know spec is here to stay.
How are we going to innovatively work in this new landscape and continue to do what we love while paying the bills?
Well?
Team roles and the DISC Assessment
February 22nd, 2010This week in my Principles of Usability class we had to think about and discuss 7 team roles, rating ourselves in the roles and comparing those scores to our classmates’.
Here are the 7 roles, summarized:
- Organize others’ work
- Continually search for information
- Coordinate different activities and make sure everyone has a job
- Carry out team decisions
- Make sure everyone feels good on the team
- Use force to push the team forward
- Create ideas
One of the questions asked was why knowing these roles are important. My answer was that it helps things get done on time, on budget, correctly and thoroughly with everyone happy at the end. My biggest realization with this answer is how similar the roles are to the DISC Assessment. The DISC Assessment categorizes people by their strengths: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness.
If you put two or three people on a team who are high Cs (conscientiousness) you’ll end up with a project that is done perfectly and is really well organized, but comes in past deadline because it had to be done perfectly and be really well organized – or it never gets done.
If you put two or three people on a team who are high Ds (dominance) you’ll end up with a project that is done before deadline, but it’s done wrong because the Ds pushed to get it done before deadline – and they argued about it the whole way.
The best teams not only have a balance of people with different strengths, but also people who have been tasked in the area of their strengths. Putting a D on research is an awful idea, but putting a D as the team lead will help the team the most.
I was able to categorize the 7 roles into the DISC:
Dominance – relating to control, power and assertiveness
- Use force to push the team forward
- Create ideas
Influence – relating to social situations and communication
- Make sure everyone feels good on the team
Steadiness – relating to patience, persistence, and thoughtfulness
- Coordinate different activities and make sure everyone has a job
- Carry out team decisions
Conscientiousness – relating to structure and organization
- Organize others’ work
- Continually search for information
The DISC really helped me understand people’s work style and how to work with different types of personalities when I took it years ago. If you ever get a chance to take the assessment, it’s very worth it.
Design copyright: the good, the fad, the ugly
September 11th, 2009In yesterday’s DCTH, someone asked the question “Is it really true that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? (copyright, plagiarism)”. There were a lot of answers, with designers coming down hard on copyright infringement. Copyright infringement is wrong, period, but I’d like to go more in depth regarding the fact that designers take inspiration from each other every day, whether this “borrowing” is right or wrong.
The Good.
“Paula Scher studied at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and began her graphic design career as a record cover art director at both Atlantic and CBS Records in the 1970s. In 1984 she co-founded Koppel & Scher, and in 1991 she joined Pentagram as a partner.” She is both a renowned artist and graphic designer.
She also parodied Herbert Matter’s 1934 Swiss tourist poster (left) in a 1985 Swatch poster (right). The poster is still controversial in the design community years after its inception. It is also taught in design school today as an example of retro design and borrowing from the past.
The Fad (or movement, rather)
Piet Mondrian is known as the father of geometric abstraction.
Theo van Doesburg is known as the founder of De Stijl, an art movement in the early 1900s.
Mondrian helped found De Stijl with van Doesburg in 1917. The style is so specific that almost everything from the movement could have been created by one artist.
The Ugly.
If you’ve been involved in the design community online in the last few months, you probably remember the name Jon Engle. To sum it up, Engle took art work from StockArt.com, incorporated it into various logos he “designed”, was sued by StockArt.com, then drummed up outrage in the design community claiming StockArt.com artists had stolen the work from him. A good summary can be found at The Logo Factory. It was an obvious copyright violation.
Design inspiration vs. copyright infringement
There is a hard line between inspired design (the good, the fad) and copyright infringement (the ugly).
If a creative creates his or her own work based on someone else’s work and puts his or her own spin on it, this is not copyright infringement – despite how blatant an inspiration it may be.
If a creative takes someone else’s work and claims it as his or her own, this is copyright infringement.
Is (blatant) inspired design ethical?
It depends who you ask. It depends on the situation. Pablo Picasso said “Good artists copy; great artists steal.” Paul Rand said “Don’t try to be original; just try to be good.” Jim Jarmusch said “Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination.”
Finally, to steal a quote from another blog post, “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.”
—T.S. Eliot
So…steal?
In Annelys de Vet’s The Right to Copy, Alice Lo summarizes in an epilogue, “the only difference between an amateur and a professional is the thinking and the knowledge of the context.”
The point is that designers and artists can take a rough idea and make it better, make it powerful, or give it a new meaning. Theft is theft, and copyright infringement is nothing to trifle with. The challenge with inspired design – blatant or otherwise – is only to start with the initial idea, but turn it into something new and different.
“Make sure your work will be copied. Stimulate your own imitators. Copy. Appropriate. Imitate. Assemble. Mimic. Use. Fuse. Misuse. Don’t be shy about it.”
—Annelys de Vet
Just don’t be ugly about it.
E-reading
August 3rd, 2009I do a fair bit of reading online. I recently got an iPod, and I have to say that I love that I can read multiple books/articles without the hassle of carrying multiple books/magazines around with me (via Kindle, Stanza and the good ol’ Internet). This morning’s story on NPR, Amazon Removes Books From Kindle, was very appropriate. It was interesting hearing other people’s opinions on e-books, their own reading styles, and where e-book readers are going.
Your momma’s a CEO
June 22nd, 2009I heard a story on NPR this morning, The Entrepreneurial Spirit Burns Bright In Detroit, that made me think about the fact that in 2009 everyone is an “entrepreneur” and a “CEO”. I’m a CEO (hey, I’ve got a website), you’re a CEO (you’ve probably sold something on Craig’s List), your brother, your dad, even the kid down the street is a CEO. Your momma’s so 2009, she’s a CEO.
The thing about providing a service or starting a business is that it doesn’t mean that you’re a CEO…or even very innovative. Innovation is as innovation does. At my previous job, when I read CEO or Principal on a designer’s resume, I tried to be objective and not balk immediately—not until I looked at the designer’s website or interviewed them. If you’re going to announce that you’ve had a high level executive position, you’d better be able to back it up. I’ll be completely honest and say that I would not be able to back up a CEO title. I’m a Principal.
So as not to be a complete stick in the mud, I will say that starting a small business and providing jobs in a down economy when you can’t find a job yourself is great. However, I think there are probably an overabundance of “CEOs” and “entrepreneurs” in America right now. Which is understandable—because one can only post job applications and search for job openings for so long. But is the next step really starting a business? Yes!
In The Entrepreneurial Spirit, the “entrepreneur” being interviewed says, “If you want to make something of yourself in this day and age, you have to hustle.” I first heard the word hustle being used in this context by Gary Vaynerchuck. Yes, we do have to hustle. But we also need a strategy; we need to research; we need to think. Or we could just sit on the couch and play Xbox all day.
Becoming a CEO is more than just calling yourself one. Being entrepreneurial does involve actualizing innovative ideas. Calling yourself a CEO and working hard and hustling to fill time is just as worthless as doing nothing. I vote for doing nothing. At least you’ll get somewhere with Xbox.
Phoenix Light Rail
June 18th, 2009Yay! Good on yah, Phoenix! This is why Arizonans need to stop wasting tax payer and state government time on bills like prop 102 (marriage inequality proposition that passed last year) and work on projects that benefit everyone.
Overblogging
June 2nd, 2009How many blog posts a day is too much? In The Zen of Blogging, by Hunter Nuttall, Nuttall alludes to blog posting frequency as dependent on the blogger, that there is no posting number too high or too low:
“Well, this one posts only once or twice a week. That doesn’t seem like enough. Is this a bad posting frequency?”
“No, it’s a wonderful posting frequency…”
“I see. And what about this one? This blogger posts multiple times per day. That seems like way too much. Is this a bad posting frequency?”
“No, it’s a wonderful posting frequency…”
However, back in 2006 Seth Godin posted that RSS fatigue was already setting in.
While multiple posts get you more traffic, they also make it easy to lose loyal readers.
I can attest to RSS fatigue personally as, after several months following, I’ve unsubscribed from blogs that posted 20+ times a day.
With so many social media sites out there right now (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn), posting dozens of times a day risks losing your loyal readers to RSS fatigue. Posting once every few months assures that no one will read your blog.
Like Zen, there must be a balance.
SkySong
May 12th, 2009I’ve been meaning to make a post on this for a while, and since I’ve been having a hard time getting away from the office for lunch, I figured this was the perfect photo lunch hour (warning for extremely long blog post ahead).
Most designers learn about influential leaders and design pieces across the design community throughout their education and career.
One of the most interesting architectural structures that I always remember learning about in college and had the privilege to visit was the Grand Louvre pyramids by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners
(I.M. Pei as the lead). Something about the juxtaposition of modern design and architecture as an introduction to historical art and architecture was appealing to me and always stuck out in my mind.
So it was with great excitement that four years ago, while working for a real estate firm, I became the lead graphic designer on the marketing material for a planned development designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, called SkySong, in Scottsdale, Arizona. The development was centered around an awesome, modern shade structure.
Now, I need to go back to the history of the land SkySong is on before I go any further.
In 1969 Los Arcos Mall was built on the land now occupied by SkySong. The mall was one of the most modern malls in the valley for its first decade. It began declining in 1979 when Fiesta Mall in Mesa opened and further declined through the 80s and 90s with the openings of other valley malls. The structure was closed in 1999 and finally demolished in 2000. (Los Arcos Mall, Wikipedia)
Between 2000 and 2005 several proposals for the land were introduced, with many Scottsdale community members, retailers and leaders trying to gain approval for a hockey arena, a Walmart and even a jail at one point (I won’t even try to explain Arizona’s crazy Sheriff).
When the SkySong development was decided on by the city council in 2005, many community members were angry because they didn’t see SkySong as a viable plan.
At the same time, Tempe Marketplace, an outdoor mega-mall less than 5 miles away, had just begun construction. This lead to even less support in the community for SkySong.
What Scottsdale residents didn’t and still don’t completely realize, however, is that
SkySong isn’t another retail development that is going to die out in 10 or 20 years. The development was built as a sustainable idea,
a plan that included retail, residential (condos) and innovative businesses. When completed, it will be a self-sustaining community that will house hundreds of companies with long-term jobs. It’s been referred to as leading Scottsdale towards a future Silicon Valley in Arizona – more than a simple retail development.
Let me get back to the point. As a designer, looking beyond all of this – the long-term viability, jobs and innovation the development will bring to Scottsdale – SkySong is just really cool. Now that the shade structure is up,
it is a gorgeous piece of modern architecture, in line with the striking beauty of the Louvre’s pyramids.
The structure was designed by one of the most influential architectural firms and one of the most influential architects of our time (Henry Cobb as the lead).
Maybe I’m bias, being a designer and now working at SkySong (since last year). But did anyone ever think they’d have a reason to tie Scottsdale, Arizona, with Paris, France – to one of the most influential design firms of the 20th century – or to something other than blonds, snobs and retirees?
This exclusive, sophisticated tie should appeal to members of the Scottsdale community.
It is Scottsdale after all.
It’s the little things…
April 2nd, 2009Today on the LinkedIn AIGA group someone brought up the mistake of using a quote mark when trying to write the feet/inches symbol (called a prime mark). It sparked a huge discussion (or rant) on punctuation, or lack thereof, in the design field. To sum up:
Curly quote: ’ (used in speech)
Apostrophe: ‘ (used to show possession)
Prime mark: ′ (used to show feet, a double prime shows inches)
Acute accent mark: ´ (used in modern languages)
Hyphen: – (used in compound words)
En dash: – (used to replace “to” or an em dash)
Em dash: — (used to replace parentheses)
Ellipsis: … (written with <option> colon on the Mac or Alt-0133 on the PC – NOT written using three periods)
Hanging indents: Use them.